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Friday, November 20, 2009

In July Google announced that they were working on Google Chrome OS, an open source operating system for people who spend most of their time on the web. I admit that primarily I'm connected to the Internet and interacting with various blogs, services and social networks so I'm intrigued to learn more about the potential and what will be made available through the operating system.

Today to to engage with partners, the open source community and developers they have open-sourced the project as Chromium OS. Ballmer just laughs off this operating system being developed by Google, there are those that view the project as vaporware but I'm sure that Google will have the final word. Below are the details from today's announcement -

First, it's all about the web. All apps are web apps. The entire experience takes place within the browser and there are no conventional desktop applications. This means users do not have to deal with installing, managing and updating programs.

Second, because all apps live within the browser, there are significant benefits to security. Unlike traditional operating systems, Chrome OS doesn't trust the applications you run. Each app is contained within a security sandbox making it harder for malware and viruses to infect your computer. Furthermore, Chrome OS barely trusts itself. Every time you restart your computer the operating system verifies the integrity of its code. If your system has been compromised, it is designed to fix itself with a reboot. While no computer can be made completely secure, we're going to make life much harder (and less profitable) for the bad guys...

Most of all, we are obsessed with speed. We are taking out every unnecessary process, optimizing many operations and running everything possible in parallel. This means you can go from turning on the computer to surfing the web in a few seconds. Our obsession with speed goes all the way down to the metal. We are specifying reference hardware components to create the fastest experience for Google Chrome OS.